![]() ![]() Very few people believed the rudimentary raft could make a 4000-mile voyage across the high seas. (Photo: Kon-Tiki Museum Facebook page) Not for his choice of shipmates, but for his intention to cross the Pacific Ocean en route to Polynesia -a journey of 4,300 miles- on a raft made from balsa wood. ![]() When he set sail in April of 1947 from Callao, Peru, with one Swede, four fellow Norwegians, and a parrot, many called him crazy. Thor Heyerdahl was a real-life Indiana Jones. While he had proved resoundingly that such a feat was possible he was never able to convince the scientific establishment of his theory that Polynesia and Easter Island were first populated by sailors from South America. The Kon-Tiki's successful 4300-mile voyage made Heyerdahl a global celebrity but his real goal would prove more elusive. When Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl set sail from Peru on a makeshift wooden raft very few people gave him any chance of reaching Polynesia. Dig Deeper JIn the footsteps of Kon-Tiki: visit Lima and Easter Island By: SA Explorer ![]()
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